Enhanced adsorptive removal of Indigo carmine dye performance by functionalized carbon nanotubes based adsorbents from aqueous solution: equilibrium, kinetic, and DFT study

The present work considers an adsorptive removal of Indigo carmine (IC) dye onto nanotube carbon (CNTs). The pure CNTs were prepared via chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method utilizing methane gas as a carbon source at 1000 degrees C in a quartz tube. The morphology and surface chemical structure of the adsorbents were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), nitrogen adsorption/desorption technique, and thermal gravity analysis (TGA). The parameters of the IC dye adsorption, such as initial concentration, contact time, pH, and mass-loaded adsorbent, were evaluated. The kinetic study confirmed that a pseudo-second-order model was best fitted to the adsorption data. The removal efficiency of adsorption onto pure and COOH-functionalized CNTs was 84% and 98.7% at 15 min, respectively. The equilibrium results were fitted well to the Langmuir isotherm model. The adsorption capacity of the CNT and COOH-CNT was 88.5 and 136 mg/g, respectively. The reusability of the adsorbents was studied, and after eight cycles, the efficiency decreased to 70%. Moreover, the density functional theory calculations confirmed that the functionalization of CNTs with COOH groups improves the adsorption properties of IC due to the formation of hydrogen-bonding interactions.